300 SECONDS
STEVEN LAZAROV

July 3 2018, 11:14 AM 

​

Death birthdays are difficult 

enough without the problem of  

locating the date & time, amid a  

range of possibilities, satellite  

landmarks & uneven peoples. 

​

Did Mo die on July 8th when the neurologist  tested stem reflexes, basic breath & activity &  pronounced the death of the brain? The state  thinks this is death but—was it forty-eight hours later when she was finally taken off life support: her lungs, heart, liver, tissues transferred to other bodies so that they could find people? Or did she die on July 5th in the  ICU when I (began to) accept she wouldn’t recover like she bounced back those dozens of times over the decade?  

​

Whatever truth is possible, it’s  

determined by a thinking making a

figuring, and disentangling all a

radial contingencies that define a life.

 

For me, Mo died on July 3, 2016.  

Between 10:45-11:30 PM US  

Central Standard Time. 

I ate ice cream with the fridge  

door open. I rolled a cigarette and  

put on Ween’s Buckingham Green  

to communicate with her through  

the wall.  

​

A medic carried her puckered  

body through the broken door,  

pumped her chest, plunged IV  

naxolone, paddle after paddle after  

paddle after, & finally forced 

breath. 

​

Mo died in the water, face-down at 

whatever hour & minute & second      

the lack of oxygen to her brain         

wiped her memory, her  

personality, her identity clean, not 

a trace, leaving not even the ability 

to breathe without a machine. 

​

They say this amount of time is           

five minutes. The human brain       

cannot go without oxygen longer        

than 300 seconds—it wasn’t the    

cardiac arrest of the overdose, at        

least not singularly, but that water,       

the water running in my bathtub, 

overflowing the sides, out into my  

living room, touching my feet          

thirty minutes later  

​

Or was it two days earlier on July            

1 when she stood at the top of the      

steps, holding a dead plant in a       

yellow pot & said, “It’s over.”  

​

~

 

This is the end of the beginning of                            

a life project of living without Mo                               

& the memory of talking on our 

first date about how Warren Beatty 

likes to orgasm looking into a 

mirror, the memory of Neruda by 

flashlight in a blanket-fort, the 

memory of her teasing when I 

couldn’t remember which Beatles’ 

record I Want You (She’s So 

Heavy) is on, the memory of her 

living in shooting galleries across 

the west side, the memory of 

checking Netflix to see if SVU or 

Arrested Development had been 

watched & receiving a  

confirmation of existence in the 

absence of her voice, the memory 

of the question three months 

before her death: “How can you 

still love me, after everything?” 

​

And the memory of my answer:

“I don’t love you despite everything. 

I love you because of everything 

you are, everything you’ve been, 

everything you want to be. I love 

you because of nothing but all of 

you. Including the ugly you’ve 

done & the ugly done to you. You 

deserve love & kindness & 

generosity & patience & loyalty. 

The fact that you grew up not 

believing this was a beginning of 

where we are today. I love you & 

will always love you.”  

​

~

​

We’re on the 9 bus going south, 

just before Lake. I struggled to  

learn how to roll a cigarette. It

was loose, unsmokable.  

​

You need to commit, she said, on 

both ends & in the middle. Then 

lick, firmly.